Charcut. Vol. 13

Lucky number 13! I should have saved the clovers for this one, but I used them last month. So instead, little aces of hearts as bullet points <3

A Book:

🂱 Désireé by Annemarie Selinko

I really loved this book, and I also spent the entire time reading it trying to figure out if I was a little bit irritated by it. I realize that might not sound like an endorsement, but please believe that it is!

This book scratches a particular itch that I sometimes have, which cries out to me, Eve—read a book in excess of 500 pages about the life of a historical woman who was powerful, outwardly or quietly, ideally at least adjacent to royalty, but doesn’t need to be, a book that has HARDSHIP, historical accuracy, pretty dresses, jewels, and a love story to boot. You know when you have an itch that cries out like that? Surely.

The book in question is about Désireé Clary, one time fiancé to Napoleon Bonaparte, later time Queen of Sweden. It’s a truly insane story, by which I both mean it’s true and it’s insane. As someone whose grasp on the history of France is tenuous at best, I had very little idea what was going to happen next, and couldn’t bear to put it down. No spoilers, but Napoleon’s rise to power was meteoric! As was his fall. And there, in the foreground, then the background, then the foreground again is Désireé Clary, Désireé Bernadotte, and finally Queen Desiderata of Sweden.

The book is written as though it’s Désireé’s diary, beginning at the age of fourteen up through her early forties. I think this choice by Selinko was both the source of my delight and my potential irritation (if I was ever really irritated, which I still couldn’t tell you if I was or not). For more than half the book, Désireé is nothing more than a girl, and as such, her concerns—such as she sees fit to write about are girlish. It’s riveting to watch her mature slowly over time, but per Selinko’s portrayal, she doesn’t really cross the threshold from just being there—power adjacent, witness, circumstantial participant—into really BEING THERE, actively, until the very end. Maybe that’s not entirely fair, Désireé certainly exerts influence in key moments, but I would have liked just a little bit more of the fully empowered version of her just a little bit earlier…

Additional honorable mention for Selinko for pulling off the true-to-life tone of a diary, where monumental historical events are sometimes recorded as an afterthought alongside the real stuff of daily life—what’s for dinner, rumors about town, the new dress from the dress maker, etc.

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Some Poems:

🂱 “The Trees” by Philip Larkin (via Poetry Today)

🂱 “The Shortest and Sweetest of Songs by George McDonald (via Everyman’s Library, No Place Like Home)

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Some Other Reads:

🂱 This spectacular, truly one of a kind essay, “Total Eclipse” by Annie Dillard—about the 1979 solar eclipse, which she watched from a hill on the side of the highway in Yakima, Washington. I STRONGLY encourage you to read it. In the little intro blurb, we are told that all these years later, at the age of 78, Dillard counts the moments of the total eclipse as some of the best of her life. In the subsequent essay, she describes what can only be classified as a harrowing experience. It verges on terror—just as all the best things do.

🂱 A lovely, lovely piece from Chloe Hope over at Death & Birds. I am somewhat recently in love with birds, so this one hit the spot. Scroll down for a peek at my own recent encounter with the ancient and unborn.

ancient and unborn

🂱 Sign up for Read Like the Wind from the NYTimes for unique, breezy book recommendations once a week on Sundays. I have never once (in the approximate 2-3 months since I subscribed) seen a book on here that I’d even heard of before.

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Sights:

🂱 The light no longer hits the wall of my bedroom at my hour of waking the way it did a month ago. The globe keeps turning. Don’t despair though, it now filters in through my living room and kitchen windows, in such a heating and blinding manner, that I feel like I’m a superstar stepping onto stage, when what I really am is a sleepy girl crossing the bedroom threshold. Glorious.

🂱 The spring flowers, the flowers! I am especially enjoying them, in their half-disheveled state, having bloomed and been open, still bright and fiery, but just on the verge of, well, death. Some of the tulips have already shed their petals, and stand there looking like, I hate to be the one to say it but, penises. While the rest lift up or let down their skirts depending on which way you consider them. It’s phallic and flirty, it makes the heart beat just so. I don’t make the rules.

If you’re new, I wrote this poem about the flowers right around this time last year. I usually don’t like reading my own writing months or years later, but this one is okay :)

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Bites:

🂱 Chicken Soup again. I stand by everything I ever said about chicken soup. It still exists, and it’s still a miracle.

🂱 The clam pizza at F+F Pizza, HOLY SHIT. Clam Girl Summer is just around the corner—go get you a slice.

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Notes from The Joy Journal™:

🂱 4/4: pie cookie for dessert

🂱 4/8: watching people watch the solar eclipse

🂱 4/11: a man with a bouquet of daffodils waiting at the airport

🂱 4/22: flower petals falling from an unseen tree

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A Parting Vibe:

🂱 Life itself right by the front door. Low down enough for me to see. Life itself!

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